Sacred Feminine?

Warning: Spoilers (and a bit of a rant) Ahead

I tend to be someone who resists doing what everyone else is doing. Which is why it took me ‘til Tuesday, laid up in bed with food poisoning, to finally read the DaVinci Code. I’ve heard a lot of the he said/she said, what are the facts hullabaloo. Whatever. Just taking the book on its own intrinsic merits and internal logic, I was pissed off annoyed by the end.

The whole book is about the Sacred Feminine: the supposed core of truth removed by the early church. Yet his definition of the Sacred Feminine is strangely masculine. He has a list of famous men who have led the Priory of Sion over the years. Why is it all men? He could have used Christina Rosseti (oh look, there’s ROSE in her name!) or Hildegard of Bingen as well known historical women. Near the end of the book he mentions in passing that four women led the group but couldn’t be bothered to name any. And Sophie, who’d been educated by the current PS leader, needed a man to help her figure out the clues? Oh, and let me be sure I understand, by his definition being a Sacred Woman means I get to have sex in front of 30 chanting people with some famous man? Oh wait, I get to be on TOP. Oh, ok. Now I feel much better.

Why is it that in DaVinci code goddess worship seems to involve sex rites and temple prostitutes? Women are free to have sex with whomever they choose, that’s what sets them free and gives them power? This isn’t about prudery or whatever on my part, but sex seems like stereotypical coin for women to need use in exchange for power. Go ahead, have your orgy, visit your temple prostitute, just don’t tell me you’re doing it to honor me as a woman. There’s nothing radical or sacred about that.

Dan Brown maintains that by Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene and having a child with her he was elevating women. Frankly what Jesus really did for Mary was much more radical. He saw her as a person. He didn’t have to have sex with her, marry her, or have children with her for her to be valuable. He instead recognized her intrinsic worth. In most societies around the world and throughout history, that has not been true. Even now in the US most of my single women friends are agonizing about still being single. Without anyone saying it, there’s a sense that something is ‘wrong’ with them. If they were smarter, nicer, prettier, more willing to compromise, etc surely they’d be married by now. But Jesus values women for themselves. They were part of the group of disciples as unmarried women. He let himself be touched in public by an ‘unclean’ woman (who wept over his feet, dried them with her—unbound=prostitute—hair, and anointed his feet with perfume). His masculinity didn’t need a woman for validation and he valued the feminine in woman without needing to possess her.